P6N Diamond and built in X-Fi trouble

Hi i just purchased a spanking new pc setup which included the p6n diamond (for the built in x-fi).
I've cleanly installed windows xp 32bit with sp2 onto the raid 5 array (3x76gb) harddrives. I installed the nvidia nforce motherboard drivers (latest windows signed driver) and the latest windows signed nvidia gfx card driver. also installed direct x 9c and enabled sli on the gfx cards.
I've done nothing else to the system..everything is fine...except... there is a pci device in device manager which i thought was my built in creative x-fi card... however, when running the msi creative x-fi installer, it says "no supported device found"....weird. So i went into my bios to check it was turned on and it was. just to make sure though, i turned it off and low and behold the pci device dissapeared from device manager. I've since turned it back on (which again popped it into the device manager) and tried installing the drivers from the creative website...which also did not find a x-fi card to install onto. i then extracted the creative .exe driver file and tried forcing the install by telling device manager i "have disk" and pointed it to the extracted files.... it installed the card "sound blaster x-fi xtreme audio", but the device "cannot start" and has an exclamation mark next to it (i had also previously tried forcing the msi drivers in the same way, but they didnt even allow me to select a driver that way (after doing the "have disk" thing)).
the bios version is 1.1 (came that way) - although i am contemplating a downgrade to 1.0 (asking you lot first 
Im kinda lost as to where to go from here and i really really really really dont want to have to dismantle my newly built pc, sent it back to ebuyer to have them tell me "the x-fi card is fine" or something along those lines... and get into a long drawn out phone battle with their support team (which is normally inevitable).
I work in IT, so give me all the options you think i have no matter how remote and i'll give them ago before losing my pc for weeks on an RMA.
spec:
e6600 dual core
2 x 7900gs using sli
corsair hx 620w psu
2 x 1gb ocz vx2 pc2-8000 ram
3 x 10k 76gb raptor  (using nvidia raid 5 built into the mb)

Ok... after installing all the windows updates (i already had sp2 installed mind you) something strange happened... the pci device was detected as an HD audio device (thanks for the tip maesus).
Thing is... after installing as a HD audio device, the pc then detected it as an creative x-fi, then it detected it as a hd audio device again, then an xfi card again...over and over in some weird "found new hardware device" loop.
and again on reboot, i got a non-functioning device in device manager (the exclamation mark again).
sooooo.... I re-installed windows (again!)...but this time i ran ms update until it ran out of updates then tried running the creative installer...... at last... it installed! 
i have sound 
So it seems you need to install a particular ms patch before installing this device... (and if you try to install the device before then...you may have to re-install the OS).  It would be very nice to know exactly what patch was needed, but at the moment i am experiencing great relief that i wont have to send this back to the supplier.
phew.   cheers for the help guys... and i hope this helps others in the same predicament.

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  • P6N Diamond problems and questions

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  • P6n diamond - error beeps and freezing

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    "Then the same stuff happens, if I go into bios, it will sometimes freeze there"
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  • P6N Diamond BIOS Failure

      Hello,
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    Quote
    Does anyone know of anything I may have missed?
    You should not have updated the BIOS from within Windows. 
    Quote
    If I previously had the BIOS set up to skip drive A - will the CTRL HOME keys still work?
    If the BIOS Boot Block is not corrupted, yes.  The Recovery Routine has nothing to do with any BIOS Settings regarding the system's boot order.
    Quote
    Is it possible I could install myself?
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  • P6N Diamond ran perfect but now wont post / no display

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    Quote
    The 8600GT doesn't have a power connector to it.
    Quote
    +5V/30A  +3.3V/30A  +12V1/16A  +12V2/18A  -12V/0.6A  +5VSB/2.5A
    This could be the cause of your problem.  Your PSU has two seperate +12V rails that cannot accumulate their power output.
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  • P6n Diamond 590mcp?

    Just wondering if someone could shed some light on the 590 chip in the p6n diamond?  I thought it was supposed to be a 680i chipset.  Does the 680i chipset use the 590 for the southbridge or something?  I was searching and found one site that listed the 680i southbridge part number and that part number included some letters and 590 so maybe it's normal.  Thanks!
    Jeff

    Hi, welcome to the forum.
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  • Deciding on a new CPU for P6N Diamond

    Hi all,
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    Paul

  • New PC build w/ P6N Diamond - won't read DVD's?

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    edit: I got lucky, it was the drive. 

  • P6N Diamond New Problem: Second HDD Randomly Starts/Stops Since recent Update

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    I have my O/S on the C drive and 2 more HDDs in RAID O for back up on ports 6 & 7. Since doing the MSI update that included the E-SATA whatever, this new problem almost prevents the computer from being usable: certainly nothing in gaming is possible along with anything that requires uninterruption.
    Here's my system:
    M/B: P6N Diamond
    CPU: E6850
    RAM: Corsair XMS PC-8500, 2 x 1 gig
    HDD: 1- WD 150 Raptor
    HDD: 2- WD 5000AAKS in Raid 0
    Vid Card: EVGA 8800GTX
    PSU: PC Power & Cooling 750 Silencer
    ODD: Sony DRU 830A
    FDD: Sony Floppy
    Misc: Scythe fans x 5
    O/S: XP Pro w/ SP2
    Running BIOS 1.2
    So, being fairly certain the MSI update created the problem, my question is, how do I undo the MSI's most recent update to remove it? When I go into Add/Remove Programs, nothing is listed there. I'm not sure this is the source of the problem but I do know I didn't have it beforehand.
    I'd greatly appreciate any help with this....even any ideas. While I have some computer knowledge, I'm not as tech savvy as most here, but this problem is, apart from driving me up a wall, making the computer almost unusable. FYI, I haven't done a System Restore because I've installed several things since and don't want to lose them if I can isolate the problem, but I will if that's what you all recommend.
    Again, sorry for what may be a noobish question, but I'm not sure where else to go. After dealing with MSI's tech support, I'd rather talk to a wall.
    Thanks greatly.
    Pepper1

    Mark,
    Forgive me for asking, but I am a bit confused. Is your "cold boot issue" now solved? If so, do you think that the new drives are the key?
    Lev
    Quote from: MarkJohnson on 17-December-07, 14:21:23
    Sorry for late post.
    After setting up the HW RAID (2500YS) for booting the system still cold boots.  strangely this time the reset (Ctrl+Alt+Del) doesn't seem to work.  I must of did it two dozen times and it would never clear.  I then just powered off after the other 2 drives on the nvidia SATA cleared and seen the HD LED light up and stay on for a few seconds(seems stuck on the 4723 checks of the drive) and then powered down and powered right back up with no cold boot issue.  It has worked this way every time for the last week or so and I tested it like 20 or so times(3-4 times a day).  These drives are listed as being compatible after the firmware update (and I did that already) so I guess it is either the MB BIOS needs updating or it's the way the nvidia chipset runs this setup is wacky.  This is assuming the 4723 HD compatibility list is correct.
    here's a summary of the drives so far.
    36GB Raptors (old revision) - can take forever to boot properly and corrupted my disk in 3 days of testing (scrambled my directory structure)
    105GB Raptors - Just reset(Ctrl+Alt+Del) 1-4 times after the HD LED goes solid for a few seconds.  worked for two months no errors.
    250GB Caviar RE(2500YS) - have to power off (power button) when HD LED goes solid.  so far no problems for a week.
    80 GB SATA II Hitachi Deskstar (HDS728080PLA380 - May 2005) - same as 150 GB Raptors, just a reset or four, only did a days worth of testing with no errors.
    well, I was hoping for those 2500YS to work properly.  Now it makes it really hard to track the problems with so many different errors and 3 different places it can go wrong 4723/nvidia/msi/HD Manufacturer.  wait, that's 4.  Oh boy!
    Hopefully this gets resolved soon.  I've already had to move this MB to my secondary system, and for other reasons than this.  I didn't mind hitting the reset button to get this to run.  I get the feeling that MSI has abandoned this board on us.  with the new P7N being released it will be even harder to get anyone to mess with this thing.
    -=Mark=-

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